Fiction Writers, Where’s The 2.0 Version Of Your Book?

If you’ve just dropped by for the first time, (where were you?) you may have missed my 2.0 post the other day.

Now, while it was written with a non fiction author in mind, there’s no reason why a fiction author can’t do the same.

While you might have more limits on what you can do, compared to a non fiction writer, there’s no reason why you can’t make more money from your last book.

Here’s a few ideas…

Writer’s Commentary – We’ve all seen those DVD extras where the director of a movie will sit down and go through the whole movie and comment on how they made it.  These are usually why they made choices they did, where ideas came from, and even what they might have changed about the finished movie. -There’s no reason why you as an author can’t do the same.

While you could write a daily diary as you write your book, there’s nothing stopping you from talking into an iPhone,  creating a few MP3 files, and offering them for readers to listen along to.

Not only is it a way for them to look behind the creative curtain, but it gives them a better idea about how your characters came about, why you wrote them the way you did, and what you’ve got planned for the future.

These extra’s, you can add and publish as a second version of your book, or as a bonus for readers to download from your site.

Merchandise – Depending on your book, you may get some more use out of the cover and content from it.  – Take the book cover as an example.

If you’re writing for the Sci-Fi/ Fantasy audience, there’s no reason not to make more use of that image of that Starship or Fantasy character on the cover.  If it’s a particularly good image, you could get more mileage out of it by selling t-shirts, mugs, or other apparel with the image on it.

Not only could you do a limited run, to make them more exclusive, but there’s nothing stopping you from setting up a free competition to get fans to share your book on social media, or as an incentive to get them to join your email list.

Translate Your Book – Want to make two, three or more versions of your book without writing another book? Then simply translate your book into the most popular languages.

Not only will you be reaching readers, but you may find that your competition drops off in the foreign language category you enter.  – Because let’s face it, most people are took lazy to go the effort of getting their book translated.

One site you could go to hire a translator is Upwork.com.  If you’ve never done it before, here’s a post of what to look out for when hiring an freelancer. 

Audio Book – If you haven’t got  an audio version of your book created yet, or in the works, you need your head seen to.  Not only are you missing out on a market, that’s exploding in popularity at the moment, but you’ve also got something for past readers to buy.

Think about the Harry Potter market for a moment. You’ve got all the books, you’ve read them numerous times, and along comes the audio version of the books read by Stephen Fry.  – Hmmm, methinks you’d be first in line to get your copy of them.  – Same content, different format.

And who knows, if you hire the right narrator (something you can do at either UpWork.com or ACX.com) your finished book may actually be better than the written text.

Create and publish your books through Audible.com, and you can pick up some handsome bounty payments ($50 at present) if you can get readers to sign up to the service.  – And all from content you’ve already written.   

Write A Short Story – If you’re like most authors, you may have content from your book that’s never going to be seen.

Maybe you’ve got a chapter where your character went off to do something that didn’t suit the finished book? Or maybe you’ve written pages of back story on your main character or villain that’s sitting on your hard drive collecting dust?

Could you massage that content into a short story and offer it as a paid or free bonus for readers? Not only could it help you make more money, build an email list, but you may draw attention to yourself in the short reads market which may lead to sales of your longer books.

If Lee Child is doing with his Jack Reacher books, there’s nothing stopping you from doing the same with your own characters too.

Think maybe you should hold off on that second book until you’ve wrung as much as you can from the first one?

Me too. –  Now off you pop and get to work.

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